Off the Wall

THEY have sketched little white stick figures on their mud walls for centuries. And now the members of Maharashtra8217;s Warli tribe will b...

THEY have sketched little white stick figures on their mud walls for centuries. And now the members of Maharashtra8217;s Warli tribe will be able to see their art come to life. The human characters talk, walk and fight, trees sway in the wind and the mongoose attacks the snake.

Pot of Gold, based on a Warli folk tale, is one of five animation films being made with tribal art for The Tallest Story Competition, a project of the Scotland-based West Highland Animation WHA company.

8216;8216;We want to make a top quality series to let people around the world know about the cultures of Indian tribes,8217;8217; says producer-director Leslie Mackenzie, on email from Perthshire. Besides the Warli paintings, other tribal art forms like the metal sculptures from Bastar in Chhatisgarh, the patua scroll paintings of Jharkhand8217;s Santhals, Gondi art from Madhya Pradesh and the wall paintings by the Saoras in Orissa are also being animated.

The Warli animation is being done by Dipanwita and Nitin Donde, a couple based in Gurgaon. 8216;8216;It is a new experience. The characters have been there for thousands of years and suddenly you see them laughing and dancing,8217;8217; says Dipanwita.

British animator Tara Douglas8212;a Delhi resident for eight years8212;is working on How The Elephant Lost Its Wings, on the Bastar metalworks. 8216;8216;It8217;s unique and recognisable and would work well in the 3-D format,8217;8217; she says, as she animates the sculptures on the 3-D Maya software and includes details like termite hills in forests.

The selection of the art forms depended on the relative ease with which each could be converted to animation. 8216;8216;We were aware of the tremendous range of art, but were daunted by its complexity. Some, like Mughal art, are far too complex for animation. When I found out about the variety of tribal art forms, I felt there was more than enough there to make an animation series,8217;8217; recalls Mackenzie, who raised finances through cultural bodies and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Society in London.

The team, which also included British anthropologist and documentary film-maker Michael Yorke, made two six-week journeys around various tribal regions in the country to select the art forms. They took photographs, shot film footage, recorded folk music and collected stories from villagers. 8216;8216;We went to more than 50 villages,8217;8217; says Douglas, narrating the rituals, the dance performances and curious glances they were welcomed with. The project is expected to be completed at the end of this year. The five films are part of a contest in which young audiences8212;aged seven to 128212;from different Scottish communities and Indian tribal groups will vote for the best film. The animations will be screened in Gaelic/English and/or Hindi/a tribal language with English subtitles. Douglas will go to Bastar soon to record some dialogue in the native Halbi language. 8216;8216;Our primary audience is children in Scotland and tribal India plus the global animation festival audience,8217;8217; says Mackenzie.

The 58-year-old animator wants to expand her animation ambitions to other parts of the world as well. Her next collaboration with Estonian animators will delve into the artistic traditions of Siberian tribes.

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Douglas wants the Indian project to work with other tribal art forms too. 8220;It8217;s sad we couldn8217;t find any funding here. I hope some cultural body sees the importance of preserving these magnificent traditional crafts.8217;8217;